Burning Typhoon on 31 August 2012
Don't use the hairdryer thing. It doesn't create enough heat to do what it's supposed to do, and you could end up melting the plastic.
There's a repair shop in my area I can take it too, should something like that happen... I'd say do that, or, look around online. You'll pay shipping, and labor, but, they'll have it fixed for you. And, the process doesn't require your hard drive at all. You can even look on ebay if you really want to.
As for the hard drive... You can get an external reader for an internal HDD. Just make sure it's fitted for a 2.5 inch SATA drive. But, that wont get your data onto a new PS3.... Should have done regular back-ups before it was too late.
